WE DID IT

Hooray! The Roll-a-Sketch coloring book Kickstarter ended today having funded at a staggering 379,900% of our goal amount.Thank you so much to everyone who pledged! Stand by for news & updates coming via Kickstarter on that project, starting next week.

If you missed the campaign proper, I’m gonna leave up the order link for original Roll-a-Sketches until next week, because why not!! So here’s your chance! (I also changed up the options a little.)

It’s a big week next week!! (The picture above isn’t relevant to anything, it’s just a context-free reflection of my fondest hopes and dreams.)

On Monday, my Roll-a-Sketch Kickstarter comes to an end. It has been a staggering success — nearly 250,000% funded as I write this! The potato salad guy got to 550,000% with his dumb thing, but I’m happy with this too.

If you would like a Roll-a-Sketch coloring book, or postcards, or a painting, or a custom mug — that’s a thing we’re offering too! — then you have a few days left. Thanks so much to those that have pledged (or ordered a sketch from me directly! Just a few more days for those, too.)

Then, later in the week, I’m heading to Indianapolis for Gen Con! I’ll be at Booth 641 along with a bunch of other pals! This will be YEAR THREE of attending Gen Con and I’m quite looking forward to it. It’s always really inspiring, walking around the floor and checking out all the cool, beautiful board games.

I keep meaning to try and set up some kind of event at Gen Con, a playtest or something, but nothing’s worked out yet. Maybe next year!!

Then…I come home to an ALL-NEW STUDIO!

For the last month or so, we’ve beenworkingon getting a new studio built out in Westchester (in southwest Los Angeles).

It’s a big move and it’s got me pretty nervous… But I’m really excited to see it all come together. I hope to have a studio-warming open house when we finally get all moved in! If you’re in the L.A. area, save the date for “Oh, geez, soon, I hope.”

And since moving is expensive, here is an IMPORTANT CAMPAIGN UPDATE: If anyone wants naming rights to the workshop tables in the new studio (complete with engraved plaque), I have just added that tier to the Kickstarter, in these few final days. We will refer to a workbench in the new studio by your name for ONE FULL YEAR.

This MAY be a webcomics first?? But I wouldn’t put anything past Andrew Hussie.

As is well known, I both (a) have an interest in things that are old, and (b) am currently promoting a Kickstarter, active right now, for my Roll-a-Sketch coloring book.

Thus, I thought it would be enlightening to speak with Col. (Ret.) Mirithus F. Coloring (b.1851), inventor of the coloring book.

Our interview took place at the Colonel’s residence.

MALKI: Colonel, you have been called both “the father of crayon-art” and also, by some, “an abomination; a scourge on the house-hold and a fiend from the Pit.” Why such a dramatic response?

COL. COLORING: Well, first I should make quite clear that any moniker regarding “crayon-art” has been fiercely opposed by Professor Crayola and his band of toughs. I have never, and certainly do not now, proscribe any implement in particular for use in my books, or recommend one over any other.

It’s just that children most often turn to crayons to fill your books.

Such has been alleged, but I have never marketed a single pamphlet as a “crayon-book.” Adults tend to use tinted pencils, I should add, and there are many more adults in the world than children.

What about the more vitriolic opinions of your work?

You must realize that when my books first began to circulate, it was a different time. Most books in the home were farming ledgers or family Bibles. The prospect of a book with no useful information in it — much less one most often perused by children, already the most useless members of the family? Mothers claimed it encouraged idleness and fancy, and fathers charged it was merely a scheme to sell penny chromo-chalks and watercolours.

Which did sell quite well, I should add.

You shouldn’t add any such thing. I never saw a nickel from the sale of any chromo-chalk; that was all my brother’s doing, capitalising on our distinctive family name. Besides, all courts have cleared me of any liability for any lung ailments they may have caused, and my brother, as you know, was lost at sea.

Last seen on a wax-freighter bound for Crete, I recall?

Yes. Ask Professor Crayola where that boat wound up.

I’d be afraid for my safety if I did. But back to the books: eventually the vitriol faded. What changed?

The old generation died off! Children who’d grown up with my books recalled them fondly when they had children of their own, and of course those who had suffered any ill effects from the chalk or anything else never survived to the age of reproduction! It was a win-win scenario.

Did you ever fear that your books were, indeed, a bad influence on children?

Pish-tosh and bubble-gum! Everything is a bad influence on children: dogs fouling in the road, or the banker’s heavy hand on the door, or the Congressional Record. My books contained nothing worse than anything a child would see in ten minutes at a rodeo.

Some would say that the generations that have grown up since the introduction of the Coloring-Book have forgotten how to respect their elders.

Any child in history that ever respected an elder is a child that ought to be reported to the authorities as a fraud.